deadbeat
Informal. not paying one's debts or neglecting one's responsibilities:a deadbeat parent who won't pay for college;deadbeat borrowers.
Horology. noting any of various timepiece escapements that act without recoil of the locking parts from the shock of contact.
Electricity. (of the indicator of an electric meter and the like) coming to a stop with little or no oscillation.
Origin of deadbeat
1Words Nearby deadbeat
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use deadbeat in a sentence
Neither Wall Street nor foreign markets like to see the United States as a deadbeat borrower, especially when the alternative global economic giant is China.
Mitch McConnell Helps Democrats Avoid a Global Economic Meltdown—And Plans to Use That Against Them | Philip Elliott | December 9, 2021 | TimeIt was during her work presenting debt research to Congress that she overheard a man in a Senate office ranting about “deadbeats” who had babies with multiple women and then avoided child support.
“We’ve Found the Enemy, and It’s Not Each Other.” Heather McGhee's Quest to End America’s Zero-sum Thinking on Race | Alana Semuels | July 23, 2021 | TimeWebsites solicit lurid, unverified complaints about supposed cheaters, sexual predators, deadbeats and scammers.
Google Ads API, Partner badges, and reputation algorithms; Friday’s daily brief | Carolyn Lyden | June 11, 2021 | Search Engine LandThe claims have led one tabloid to brand Jenner a “deadbeat daughter.”
Are You Legally Responsible for Your Elderly Parents? | Keli Goff | April 26, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTNo, they say, instead of their intoxicated deadbeat boyfriend, they want someone…someone like Putin.
Anyway the phrase "deadbeat nation" is going to have a lot more resonance coming out of Obama's mouth than in Rubio's letter.
It caught a lot of people's ears just now when Obama said, "We are not a deadbeat nation."
When marriages fail, the deadbeat dad is the norm in American society, not the exception.
Then he makes off with another deadbeat, and starts a kind of show outside the town—this was in Port Arthur, mind.
Menotah | Ernest G. HenhamThe bartender, accepting the situation as generally inclusive, put his hands up along with his deadbeat patrons.
Trail's End | George W. OgdenThe sparrow was deadbeat, and was travelling slowly to the north and west on a zigzag course, about two hundred feet high.
H.M.S. ---- | KlaxonI knew you looked a deadbeat, but Id no idea I was quite so bad, he said.
The Protector | Harold Bindloss
British Dictionary definitions for deadbeat (1 of 2)
/ (ˈdɛdˌbiːt) /
informal a lazy or socially undesirable person
mainly US
a person who makes a habit of avoiding or evading his or her responsibilities or debts
(as modifier): a deadbeat dad
a high grade escapement used in pendulum clocks
(modifier) (of a clock escapement) having a beat without any recoil
(modifier) physics
(of a system) returning to an equilibrium position with little or no oscillation
(of an instrument or indicator) indicating a true reading without oscillation
British Dictionary definitions for dead beat (2 of 2)
informal tired out; exhausted
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with deadbeat
Defeated; also exhausted. For example, That horse was dead beat before the race even began, or, as Charles Dickens put it in Martin Chuzzlewit (1843): “Pull off my boots for me ... I am quite knocked up. Dead beat.” [Slang; first half of 1800s]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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